The Art of the Message Grid

It’s been a long time since I last worked on a political campaign, and — to be completely honest — considering the current state of politics in this country, I’m perfectly fine never working on one again.

Nonetheless, many of the things I’ve learned from political campaigns are still applicable to the civic campaigns we run here at Denny Civic Solutions. When I worked in D.C. for the political consulting firm Eddie Mahe and Associates, I was introduced to the “message grid.” Basically, it is a box broken into four quadrants, used to by political candidates to list:

What I would tell my audience about me;

What I would tell my audience about my opponent;

What I believe my opponent would tell the audience about her or himself;

And, most importantly, what I believe my opponent will tell people about me.

Jeremy Porter Communications, a New York-based firm, offers a really good and clear explanation of the importance of a message grid. As Jeremy points out, the grid helps you define the overall narrative of the campaign by defining yourself and your opponent first.

We also anticipated the opposition’s argument that changing the name would cost too much in terms of changing letterhead, signage, forms, etc. This allowed the campaign to put the most positive message (and messengers) front and center – and take preventive measures to eclipse our opponents’ arguments.

Here are several more samples from Jeremy Porter’s website of what a good messaging grid might look like.

If you or your organization would like to learn more about messaging grids, or would like some guidance developing your own, feel free to email or give us a call at the number below.